Este Es Mi Pais

Opening reception, Fri., May 21, 6-8 p.m.; exhibit May 22-Sept. 26; free, Morris Gallery, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 118 N. Broad St., 215-972-7600, pafa.org.

by Shaun Brady

visual art

Immigrants in America often seem trapped in a sort of purgatory: in their adopted country but not of it, standing out but at the same time nearly invisible. Puerto Rican-born, Philly-based artist Roxana Pérez-Méndez explores that in-between existence in work that itself teeters between opposing states: high and low tech, comic and caustic, realistic and fantastic. She mixes video images, models and Pepper's ghost holograms — a 19th-century parlor trick using plate glass and lighting techniques to make images appear and disappear. The artist herself often appears as part of these illusions — in a suspended rowboat, escaping from a semi truck, or even colonizing the moon on behalf of an invented Puerto Rican space program. The blend of techniques creates a sense of suspended reality, time frozen or skipping like a scratched record, actions circling rather than progressing. Her new installation, Este Es Mi Pais, suggests the same sort of ambiguity, a possessory claim, but one made in a language that tends to undercut its meaning or at the very least preempt its positive reception.